
Michael J. Fox has written a memoir before. Three, in fact. There was Lucky Man, then Always Looking Up and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Future.
But don't be fooled by the predictably buoyant title of his latest, No Time Like the Future. This book, the actor has said, is different; this one is "cranky".
Watch: Michael J. Fox on his rock-bottom moment.
It comes on the back of an especially challenging period for Fox; one that left him questioning his bankable brand of optimism.
The Parkinson's disease he's lived with for 30 of his 59 years has made it challenging for him to walk unassisted, causes pain in his knees, jerks his limbs and means his famously fast brain to fire quite like it used to.
"Absent a chemical intervention, Parkinson’s will render me frozen, immobile, stone-faced, and mute – entirely at the mercy of my environment," he writes in the book.
"For someone for whom motion equals emotion, vibrance and relevance, it’s a lesson in humility."
The degenerative disease, which affects nerves in the brain and for which there is no known cause or cure, has guided the award-winning actor to the end of his Hollywood career.
"In fairness to myself and to producers, directors, editors, and poor beleaguered script supervisors, not to mention actors who enjoy a little pace, I enter a second retirement," he writes. "That could change, because everything changes. But if this is the end of my acting career, so be it."
This acceptance is what underpins his new style of optimism. Or as he described it to The New York Times, "informed hope".
Here is his winding path to reach it.
Fame, love and Parkinson's.
Michael J. Fox was 21 when he landed the role of Alex P. Keaton in the sitcom Family Ties. He'd only arrived in Los Angeles from Canada, where he was born and raised, a few years prior.
It was a star-making part, one that earned him three Emmys and Golden Globe and introduced him to the love of his life — his now-wife, Tracy Pollan, who played his girlfriend, Ellen, on the series.
Tracy and Michael on the set of Family Ties. Image: Getty.